Wearing apparel



WEARING APPAREL Filed March 17, 1936 Patented Dec. 6, 1938 UNITED STATESy yPATENT OFFICE WEARING APPAREL Application March 17, 1936, Serial No. 69,274

3 Claims.

This invention relates to wearing apparel: it pertains more particularly to garments provided with collars worn normally in a turned-down state but capable of being turned up; and it pertains specifically to coatlike garments, such as jackets, overcoats and other overgarments adapted for outerwear. This invention comprises broadly combinations of such overgarments and hoods of novel construction capable of union therewith to form wearing apparel of great ser- Viceability duri-ng inclement weather. The particular embodiment of this invention chosen for the purpose of illustration is the combination of a mackinaw and a hood.

The principal object of this invention is toy provide wearing apparel of the character described which will permit freedom of movement of the head of its wearer in a measure hitherto unattainable in wearing apparel of such character.

Another object of this invention is to pro-Vide wearing apparel of the character described where:- in the union between the coatlik'e garment and the hood is continuous, draftproof, leakproof, and yet will permit the ready disjunction of the hood from the coatlike garment.

These, and other objects and advantages resulting from the use of this invention Will become apparent to anyone skilled in the art by an examination of the following description and the accompanying drawing wherein:

Fig. 1 is a front View in perspective of a mackinaw and a hood united therewith in use;

Fig. 2 is a rear elevation of a one-piece collar, turned up, of a mackinaw and the lower portion of a hood, showing the hood partially detached from the one-piece collar;

Fig. 3 is a view, partly in section along the line 3, 3 of Fig. 2, of the one-piece collar and the lower portion of the hood attached thereto;

Fig. i is a similar View, partly in section, of a two-piece collar and the lower portion of a hood, showing a modification of the invention as applied to a two-piece collar; and

Fig. 5 is a front elevation, partly broken away, of the two-piece collar, turned up, and the lower portion of the hood of Fig. 4, showing the modification of the inventio-n as applied to a twopiece collar.

In the art of making coat collars of garments such as mackinaws, the procedures of cutting and fashioning one-piece collars and two-piece collars are quite different. In the manufacture of one-piece collars, the cloth is folded, the fold forming the top edge of the collar, and the edges of the folded cloth are shaped for union with the body of the garment. In the manufacture of twopiece collars, the two pieces of cloth are cut to give a contour, usually curved, to the top edge of the collar, the edges of the twopieces of cloth l are then turned in, and the two pieces are stitched together. One difference between onepiece collars and two-piece collars is obvious: the top edge of a one-piece collar is necessarily straight. But another difference between onepiece collars and two-piece collars is not so obvious, and yet this difference is of particular importance in this invention. In the process of sewing a one-piece collar to the body of a garment, a certain amount of gathering of the lower edges of the one-piece collar occurs, so that if the line of union of the one-piece collar and the body of the garment is stretched to form a straight line, as is shown at 3 in Fig. 2, the onepiece collar cannot be made to lie flat upon a plane surface, but, on the contrary, will exhibit a longitudinally disposed bulge inthe cloth substantially of the shape shown at 4l and most pronounced at the center of the width of the onepiece collar. This distortion of the cloth of the one-piece collar, which appears to be due to an excess of cloth, is known in the art as the spring of the collar. In a two-piece collar, due to the compensating cutting practiced by the makers thereof, no such spring is present because no gathering of the lower edges of the cloth of the collar occurs in the process of sewing the collar1 to the body -of the garment.

In the drawing, I is a one-piece collar of a mackinaw showing the straight line fold Z of the cloth `forming the top edge of the collar: the line of union 3 of the one-piece collar and the body of the mackinaw is stretched tautly in, Fig. 2 to exhibit the spring at 4. On the underside of such a one-piece collar, and along a line about f an inch below and parallel to the top edge of the collar, one half 5 of a separable slide fastener is secured by sewing to the collar the fabric strip 6 bearing that half of the separable slide fastener. The other half 'l of the separable slide fastener is secured to the inner side of the cloth of the hood 9 along a line about an inch above and parallel tothe lower rear edge of the hood by sewing to the hood the fabric strip 8 bearing that half of the separable slide fastener. The edges of the hood are suitably bound with tape I0 and the slide i3 of the separable slide fastener is carried preferably by that half of the separable slide fastener which is secured to the hood. The sep-arable slide fastener is of the usual type, adapted for union by means of a bayonet thrust joint located at the end I2 of the fastener, and the fastener extends in length along the under side of the collar a distance substantially equal to the distance between the lapel notches I3. The hood 9, which is cut quite full in the crown, is formed of two similarly shaped pieces of cloth stitched together with the seam of their union running over the top of the head from front to rear: the two edges of the cloth of the hood are then stitched offside, i. e., they are stitched to one only of the pieces of cloth of the hood, and the hood is then turned inside out: incisions are made in the frontal edges of the hood, and the edges of the incisions are overlapped and sewed together to form the triangularly shaped structures shown at I4, which are equivalent to darts and which effect a close fit of the hood to the face and a slight binding action along a perimetrical line traversing the forehead and the back of theV head below the crown. Such a hood, when worn, will tend to stand up off of the head and will exhibit a pronounced ridge, as illustrated in Fig. l, but will be pulled down upon the head by a slight tension exerted at the rear edge of the hood: upon the release of such tens1on, the hood will tend to recover its original position. These effects are further promoted by giving to the frontal edge of the hood the form of a widows peak, as shown at IB. For claiming purposes, a hood of the shape and construction set forth may aptly be termed a yielding hood.

In utilizing this invention in a mackinaw having a one-piece collar, the yielding hood is simply attached to the one-piece collar by uniting the two halves of the separable slide fastener. The combined effect of the spring of the one-piece collar and the yielding characteristic of the hood eliminates constraint upon the movements of the head of the wearer, especially since the spring of the one-piece collar is located at the region of bending of the neck; and yet, no undue fullness nor unsightly punching of cloth at the nape of the neck is ever apparent to the eye, irrespective of the position of the head of the wearer: the ridge of the hood, which is observable when the head is held upright, is not unattractive in appearance. The union of the hood and the collar is continuous, and, since the assembled slide fastener is positioned between overlapping thicknesses of cloth, the outer one of which extends downwardly, no draft of air can blow through such union, nor can rain or melting snow drain through such union.

In adapting this invention to a two-piece collar, some modification is necessary to compensate for the absence of spring in such collars; and such a modification, coming within the spirit and scope lof this invention, is shown in Figs. 4 and 5 wherein the nature of the union Il of the two pieces of cloth, forming the top edge of the two-piece collar, is shown. In Figs. 4 and 5, the

half 'I of the separable slide fastener, borne bythe hood, is not secured directly to the cloth of the hood 9 by means of the fabric strip 8 bearing that half of the separable slide fastener,'but is secured to a strip of elastic webbing I9 which, in turn, is secured to the cloth of the hood 9: this elastic webbing supplies the elasticity in the union needed to compensate for the absence of spring in the two-piece collar. It is obvious that such elastic webbing may be interposed between the half 5 of the separable slide fastener secured to the under side of the two-piece collar I8, or that both halves of the separable slide fastener may be secured to separate strips of elastic webbing which, in turn, are secured to the inner side of the hood and to the under side of the two-piece collar respectively.

The attachment of the hood to the upturned collar of the mackinaw produces a garment which will adequately shield from inclement Weather the head, neck and body of its wearer: with the hood detached from the collar of the mackinaw and the collar turned down, the appearance of the mackinaw differs in nowise from the appearance of the usual mackinaw, since the half 5 of the separable slide fastener is entirely hidden from view.

While two particular embodiments of this invention have been described and illustrated, it is obvious that numerous changes may be made therein; and hence this invention includes all modifications and equivalents which fall Within the scope of the appended claims.

Having thus described our invention, we claim:

l. In wearing apparel of the character described, in combination, a collar possessing a spring and adapted to be turned up, a hood, and a separable slide fastener, one half of which is secured to the under side of the collar and the other half of which is secured to the inner side of the hood, so that the separable slide fastener when assembled lies between overlapping thicknesses of the cloth of the collar and of the cloth of the hood.

2. In wearing apparel of the character described, in combination, a collar, a hood, elastic webbing secured along one of its edges to the hood, and a separable slide fastener, one half of which is secured to the collar and the other half of which is secured to the elastic webbing along its other edge.

3. In wearing apparel of the character described, in combination, a collar, a hood, elastic webbing secured along one of its edges to the inner side of the hood, and a separable slide fastener, one half of which is secured to the collar and the other half of which is secured to the elastic webbing along its other edge, so that the separable slide fastener, when assembled, lies within the cloth of the hood.

ESTHER F. SMITH. HARRY H. SMITH. 

